India NEWS

Refinery major, HPCL is looking to borrow ₹8k crore to carry out its expansion plans. HPCL Chairman, MK Surana said that the proposed plan of raising Rs 12,000 crore in debt has been approved by shareholders. While HPCL is yet to decide upon the time or size of borrowings, it is clear that the fundraising does not involve borrowing plans of subsidiaries.

Supermajor Shell has established its first lubricant laboratory in the Indian city of Bengaluru. The laboratory will serve as an aid to India's OEMs and customers through valuable data analysis and new technologies. The addition of Shell Lubricants R&D laboratory unit is in line with Shell’s direct global reach in India, which is the third largest market for lubricants in the world.

India's second largest fuel retailer, BPCL has reported an increase in its profit in the fourth quarter. Its profit jumped by 16% and was at Rs 3,125 crore by the end of the quarter. The company said, "The Corporation has accounted for compensation towards sharing of under-recoveries on sale of sensitive petroleum products of over Rs 882.65 Crores by way of subsidy from Government of India for the current period”.

In a bid to make up for the supply loss of Iranian oil due to US sanctions, oil guzzler IOCL has availed the option of receiving an extra 2 million barrels of crude from Saudi Aramco. Under the deal, the state-run refiner will get the extra crude supply for every month between July-December. IOCL entered into a term deal to purchase 5.6 million tonnes of Saudi crude in 2019/20.

The Indian energy firm, Petronet LNG has reported a 15.87% fall in profits for 4Q2019, from the corresponding quarter in the previous year. Petronet LNG registered a ₹440-crore in profits in the last quarter of the financial year 2018-2019. The company has attributed lower profits to the inventory loss of ₹119 crore. The company will distribute a 45% dividend to shareholders.

If sources were to be believed, ExxonMobil and state-owned GAIL (India) Ltd are in talks to form a joint venture in the country. Exxon’s renewed focus on India is an acknowledgment of the rising energy consumption in India. Chairman and MD at GAIL said, “The discussions are on. We are likely to make an announcement in a fortnight or so,".

In a statement given yesterday, Indian EPC major, Engineers India Ltd (EIL) informed about signing an agreement to deliver project management consultancy (PMC) services for the new 1.5 million tonne refinery being established in Mongolia. EIL inked the deal with Mongol Refinery State Owned LLC. The state-run EPC firm had previously performed a Detailed Feasibility Study for the project.

After the US exempted all the Iran sanction waivers from the major oil importing countries, Aramco has stepped up to help the nations meet the shortages. According to the sources, the world's largest oil company has offered increased crude oil supplies to India by 200,000 barrels a day (bpd). This will help India meet almost half of its oil imports that were coming from Iran.

Tanker arrival data available with news firm, Reuters has revealed that the Iranian oil imports to India dropped approximately 57% year-on-year in April. New Delhi received about 277,600 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from the Persian country last month, down about 31.5% from March. India was amongst the eight nations who received a six-month waiver from US sanctions introduced in November.

India's natural resources major, Vedanta Ltd. witnessed major drop in profit in the recent quarter which ended in March. The company has reported a 46% drop in net profit to Rs 2,615 crore which was Rs 4,802 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. 32% of the drop in the firm's total income in this quarter made the income roll down to Rs 7,065 crore.

India's GSPC-owned Gujarat Gas Ltd has reported an increase in net profit to 77% in the recent quarter which ended in March. The company's profit has surged on the back of higher sales. In a regulatory filing, the company informed that its net profit in the period of January-March has been Rs 116.54 crore. Its sales went up to Rs 1,963.26 crore from Rs 1,777.82 crore in January-March 2018.

Indian oil major, ONGC has awarded a contract to the Bumi Armada-Shapoorji Pallonji JV for the provision of a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel. The contract pertains to the ONGC NELP Block KG – DWN 98/2 development project cluster-II field, situated on the east coast of Kakinada, offshore India. The nine-year contract award will earn the JV approximately $2.1 billion (RM8.8bil).

India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has resumed its operations in its Bay of Bengal field after a category-4 cyclone. According to the sources, as a measure of precaution, ONGC had stopped its operations and evacuated almost 500 employees. With cyclone Fani making landfall around Puri in Odisha, the energy major was alarmed as most of its installations are off the Andhra coast.

In a statement yesterday, CEO at Nayara Energy said that the firm has concluded a $750 million pre-payment deal with BP and Trafigura. The deal will require Nayara Energy to repay the two firms with the supply of gasoline and gasoil over the course of the next four years. Nayara, formerly known as Essar Oil, was acquired in 2017 by Rosneft-led consortium where Russian fund UCP and Geneva-based Trafigura are partners.

India's HPCL is planning the acquisition of MRPL which has hit a cash hurdle at the moment. The parent company of HPCL, ONGC, wants to go for cash instead of a share-swap, informed the sources. ONGC acquired HPCL for Rs 36,915 crore last year. However, all this time HPCL has been talking about the acquisition through the Oil Ministry and media and is not yet ready with a concrete proposal.

HPCL’s stance on the promoter classification has remained resolute one year after its Rs. 37000 crore-acquisition by ONGC. In a recent regulatory filing, HPCL continued recognizing the Government as its promoter and ONGC as a public shareholder. HPCL’s shareholding pattern hasn’t changed despite a government directive asking it to acknowledge ONGC as the promoter. In response to an inquiry, HPCL has said that it is awaiting certain clarifications from authorities.

According to the sources, India's Reliance Industries Limited and Royal Dutch Shell are planning to exit the Panna-Mukta oilfields. Their contract with the government will expire this year. Currently, both the companies hold 30% participating interest in the field and another 40% is owned by the state-run ONGC. After the two companies will leave the field, the task of managing these depleting fields will go to ONGC.

An arbitration case against the Government of India is adding heavily to Cairn Energy’s administration expenses. In its latest annual report, the British oil firm has revealed that the cost of fighting the arbitration against the Rs 10, 247 crore tax imposed by India nearly tripled in 2018, while it has lost investments and tax refunds pending final award. Cairn has so far spent approximately $ 22.9 million in 2018.